Oil Lies

In a new TV commercial, Barack attacks McCain for being in the bag of big oil for having a) accepted money from the oil companies, and, implying a quid pro quo, b) supported tax cuts for big oil. If you had to guess, would you think Barack's ad is a celebration of the new kinda politics, or the old?

"Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets," the narrator says as the screen reads: "$143 Billion in Profits Over the Last Year.

It's true, the profits of oil companies are hitting record setting levels - in total dollars. On a percentage basis, though, their profits are smaller than those of many other industries.

As the ad cuts to a photo of McCain, the narrator says: "Now Big Oil’s filling John McCain’s campaign with $2 million in contributions," citing the Center for Responsive Politics. "Because instead of taxing their windfall profits to help drivers, McCain wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks."

This is blatantly deceptive. McCain hasn't proposed any tax breaks for the oil companies.

This claim, cited on screen as the handiwork of the liberal Center for American Progress, is an apparent reference to McCain's proposal to cut corporate taxes -- for all companies, not just oil companies -- from 35 percent to 25 percent.

What ever happened to Barack as the guy who was going to change the way Washington does business? If he won't represent change in the campaign, why would we expect him to do it once he's in office?

As the camera pulls back from the photo of McCain to reveal him standing with President Bush, the narrator says, "After one president in the pocket of big oil, we can’t afford another. Barack Obama: A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand dollar rebate. A president who’ll stand up for you."

Has McCain done anything wrong here? Only if you want to indict him for accepting the donations from the very companies which would be effected by his policy proposals, but that is, unfortunately, how our system works. Barack, according to McCain's campaign, has also accepted money from big oil, and he's also making policy proposals that would affect them.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds writes to say, "Barack Obama's latest negative attack ad shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy, after all it was Senator Obama, not John McCain, who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was a sweetheart deal for oil companies. Also not mentioned is the $400,000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election."